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Starting Solids and working

LO will be six months this week, and she's been showing all the signs that she's ready for solids. In most of the reading I've done, they recommend doing it earlier in the day as not to disrupt sleep patterns and also to wait about an hour after nursing. However, I work full time so evenings are really the only daily time that I have time to sit and work with her, and we often only have an hour or so before she falls asleep.

Mom's who work, did you use the evening feeding for introducing foods? Did you wait an hour after nursing, or nurse and then try foods at the same "sitting"? Did you find it disrupted sleep? (Although, she still often wakes 2, sometimes 3 times a night, so really how much more disrupted can I get )

I usually nurse when we get home around 6, and then if she hasn't fallen asleep by 7:30, will usually nurse again and then she goes to bed. I'm pumping 4x during work and she takes 4 bottles of 5 oz each, so overall eats about 8 - 9 times a day. Thanks!

Re: Starting Solids and working

Mom's who work, did you use the evening feeding for introducing foods? Did you wait an hour after nursing, or nurse and then try foods at the same "sitting"? Did you find it disrupted sleep?

We did! For several months the evening meal was the only solid food we gave our daughter most days, especially weekdays. I always nursed before offering solids until recently, as her diet has naturally evolved to be mostly solids supplemented by nursing, rather than the other way around, which it was from 6-12 months. Many babies when they first start really ingest very little for the first several months anyway. I did not notice it disrupting her sleep, she had bad sleep cycles and better sleep cycles all through that period, and the biggest factors in sleep disruption always seemed to be 1) teething 2) getting close to a developmental milestone or 3) being sick. I never worried about waiting an hour to feed solids after nursing, but since she liked to cluster feed in the evenings or, once mobile, do a lot of quick "drive by" nursing sessions, if I had had that rule she would have almost never been given solids! Our schedule when we first started solids was:
6:00 pm I get home
6:00-7:30, DH cooked dinner while I played with her and allowed her too nurse completely on demand (as usual), whether that was once or 15 times.
7:30ish we all sat down to eat, or often in her case, smash food around her plate and in her hair
8:00-8:30 her bedtime, nursed down to sleep.

(Although, she still often wakes 2, sometimes 3 times a night, so really how much more disrupted can I get )

Oh, be careful what you say! I hate to tell you but you may be one of the lucky ones. I considered waking 2-3 a night a good night. Some nights my DD wakes up 8 times or more Same with several other mothers here. You'll make us jealous! But I don't think this was due to solids at all, because this was her pattern before we ever offered solids in the first place.

Mom to Taiga born 6/2010Pocket cloth diapers. Baby led solids. Full-time working mom. I my DH, DD, kitty Dr. Benway, and my working border collie Odin!
BF for 1 year and she and I still love it !!!!

Re: Starting Solids and working

I like to offer foods in the morning... so when I first started Trixie on food, I did it on the weekends only. When she was actually eating some, I brought some to the DCP. I do a mix of purees and table foods... the DCP gives her maybe an ounce of puree and an ounce of oatmeal daily and we give her cucumber sticks and other fruit or cheerios to mess with at home. She's 7 months old today and WAY more interested in solids than my first daughter was at 10 months.

And with ooky - 2 to 3 times a night is not bad at all. Lilah woke up 2 to 3 times a night until she was 7ish months old and then proceeded to wake up every 90 minutes or less for the next three or four months. So far, Trixie doesn't seem to be following in her big sister's footsteps on that one..

I have seen sleep get a little worse with Trixie over the past month, but I think it's more because she wants to crawl than because of tummy discomfort from solids.